Devil’s Ivy
- An ordinary, enduring plant.
It is not particularly pretty. It does not flower. It grows downward. It is satisfied with minimal amounts of water. It births new plants through merely a segment of the original plant. It embeds new roots when its node touches the ground. It purifies the air through its heart-shaped leaves.
Everyday life
-Trivial things from my private space accompany me in my daily life.
Bad habits create obstacles, but establish foundations that encourage improvement. Crowds of people packed in a small house establishes close relationship. Providing rides for my kids so many times a day offers more time to talk in intimate space within the walls of the car. Being a poor talker causes small misunderstandings, but doesn’t cause big trouble. These things I have had for a prolonged period of time became boring, but provide and comfort and familiarity. In these aspects of my life, the positive potential of each outweighs the negatives. Small little things compile and create a whole universe. Each day becomes a week, a month, a year. The compilation of these days conceive the present moment of today.
In my work, my old boring sofa became a happy house. The cushion in the corner became a floating cloud in the sky. The circular pattern on my faded curtain became a moon. An entire universe exists in my small private space.The snapshots of the unexpected and repetitive aspects everyday life create a coherent puzzle, despite their seemingly uncorrelated existence. Realistic and surrealistic expression coexists harmoniously. Devil’s Ivy continues to grow regardless of the circumstance it is in, carrying hope and love from every corner of the private space. Like Devil’s Ivy does, I appreciate that I'm still growing in the state (circumstance, situation) I am now.
My work is all about making new discoveries; not about new things, but about things that have always existed around me.
I’m trying to draw attention to objects whose very existence I have taken for granted, therefore, I’ve never really paid much attention to… until now.
I explore this theme in my work through the meeting of different objects with completely different personalities. Soft, pliable, and shapeless materials encounter hard surfaces throughout the household and daily surroundings.
Things such as a shadow, light, or rain drop are substances that don’t really have a particular form of their own. Yet when they gently come in contact with a surface, their fluidity allows them to take on new shapes that can forever change with time. It is this essence of their form, never predetermined, that allows them to design endless images.As they flow onto surfaces, there is no limit in their ability to change our images of fixed forms, such as a window, floor, or wall that we unconsciously see every day. It is a harmonious act, never upsetting.
The visions in my work are always peaceful as the two different textures come into contact, creating beautiful images every time they meet. I experience this myself, as I sit in front of a hard canvas, spending hour after hour, mixing my paints with oil, coating and brushing the surface over and over again to create a new image.
I hope that those who see my work will gain a newfound appreciation for the people and environment surrounding their lives, so often forgotten or taken from granted, to create their own happiness space.
Reality, convention, and prejudice reside in ourselves, confining us and restricting our freedom. My interest lies in the endless human struggle against these restrictions. My work draws attention to the very small parts, the simple movement and basic sound of our body, such as expanding the scale or speed to challenge our preconceptions.
Just as people are unaware of their body until they experience physical pain, I lived a pain free existence before I arrived to live in a new culture and environment. My new identity as a foreigner and mother radically shook my core identity. I have been struggling to figure out and redefine who I am and to communicate with others. In my most recent work, I represent a person's struggle with his/her own identity and communication through interactions with an object: two faces, trying to talk, are projected on the front and back of the cast mask. A giant mouth keeps trying to take off clear tape covering it and to talk. Two projections of two sets
of gigantic mouths, which are on the two door arches of the dry building, keep on repeating meaningless sound 'Ah -.' Two big hands keep hitting to get out of the transparent wall. A person is continuously jerked to a standing position from a chair, touching a dildo, writhing beneath a cloth, trying to open a door or pushing a baby's head in labor. These motions are always looped and accompanied by fundamental sounds such as talking, crying, breathing and murmuring, which represents the endless effort and endeavor of our actions.
In my artwork, I use a video projection to symbolize struggle for freedom and inanimate objects as a substitute for our immutability, convention, and circumstance. The conflict between the two different media intensifies the relationship and struggle between the desire to change and the inability to escape our restriction.